


Puttin' On The Ritz

by paperclipbitch



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes (Downey films)
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Tea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-24
Updated: 2013-10-24
Packaged: 2017-12-30 09:39:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1017063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperclipbitch/pseuds/paperclipbitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Irene tends to get her revenge by picking the time periods with the least comfortable underwear.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Puttin' On The Ritz

**Author's Note:**

> For my beloved BFF Teresa! Still writing caffeine crazed ficlets for my twitter feed, sha la la (though I have to go sleep soon). Ritchieverse Holmes, because that’s my favourite, and because McAdams!Irene is maybe my favourite Irene. Maybe. _Maybe._

“The repeated use of the nineteenth century is starting to display a certain lack of imagination,” River remarks, settling into her chair and nodding as a discreetly gliding waiter asks whether she’d like tea. She would always like tea; it’s astonishing that they still have to _ask_.

“You like wearing a bustle,” Irene responds from beneath the frothing confection of a hat she’s selected for this meeting.

“I like what I can _keep_ in a bustle,” River corrects. She’s wearing a hat too, but she’s beginning to suspect it might not be as good a hat as Irene’s, which means the hat must either be stolen or destroyed. She’s happy to do either, although Irene has proven in the past to be protective of her millinery and, nineteenth century or not, has revealed garrotte wire from the most varied of locations.

She’s creative; River has always allowed her that much. Perhaps not as creative as River is, but then she’s had more than one body and more than one mindset to play with. Irene’s a simple time traveller, for the value of ‘simple’ that you _can_ be when you are also a time traveller, and thus will always fall a little short.

Irene tends to get her revenge by picking the time periods with the least comfortable underwear. River, when she’s allowed to choose, selects the ones that require a certain level of speed with a trigger finger. Irene’s always been better at the discreet knife between the ribs than the exploding bullet; nothing about River has ever been discreet. Nothing she’s willing to talk about, in any case.

At least the nineteenth century is excellent at afternoon tea; there are silver linings to every uncomfortable corset-filled afternoon, if you know where to look.

“Do you have my package?” River asks, and Irene tuts.

“You could at least wait for the darjeeling to arrive,” she scolds. “There’s a dessert trolley to navigate before we get down to real business. Or are you worried that that prison of yours will be missing you?”

She flings the words with a snip to them, but Irene isn’t aiming to sting; they slide right off. There’s plenty of places to hit if you want to hurt River, but Irene avoids them unless it’s been a particularly _trying_ escapade, and River affords her the same courtesy. There are certain rules that should be followed in a ceasefire, at least if you want to maintain a dignified one.

There’s no small talk after a certain amount of time travel; still, they can try their collective best.

“How is your husband?” she asks.

Irene laughs, sitting back so that a waiter can fill her cup. It’s the most expensive tea this hotel has to offer; they haven’t discussed who will be footing the bill, and it’s entirely probably that the staff will find the table unaccountably empty, nothing left but the crumbs of cream cakes. It would not be the first time.

“Which one?” Irene responds when their waiter has glided away. “And yours?”

“Debateable,” River tells her, because that’s often the simplest way to describe… well, that delightful mess.

She looks at the tea and then at Irene, who rolls theatrical eyes and then hands over a small box wrapped in brown paper and tied in string. Innocuous, anonymous, and possibly the most dangerous thing River has had in her hands. At least this year, in any case.

“I’ve never understood why you can’t deal with Holmes yourself,” Irene says, sipping at her tea. Irene doesn’t have tells, as such, because life as a con artist-cum-thief-cum-calculated-gambler doesn’t last long if you don’t stand before a mirror and iron out your tells thoroughly before you begin, but there’s still something in her mouth when she talks about Holmes that River doesn’t look too closely at because she suspects she wears it herself at times.

It’s really rather complicated, being in love with someone who should really be your nemesis, if you were at all sensible.

River thinks that, for two women who have self-preservation down to a perfect artform, they haven’t done a particularly good job there.

“I thought he was always _delighted_ to see you,” River tells Irene, adding milk to her tea and swallowing something like a smirk. “It’s much easier to utilise your business relationship.”

She thinks she manages to keep a straight face; Irene’s expression says that she knows what River is thinking anyway.

“If you don’t want him to analyse you, you can just say,” Irene says mildly, fingers delicate around her teacup. She likes the dignity of the nineteenth century; there’s more anger in her eyes in other centuries when they meet on the edge of battlefields and in amongst burning star systems, bloody-knuckled and much less polite.

“I’m not afraid of anything Sherlock Holmes has to say to me,” River replies, and the tea is good enough for them both to pretend that she’s telling the truth.


End file.
